When I was at Nintendo‘s Pre-E3 conference this year and saw the trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I was really excited and pleased. I thought that the visuals were a nice blend between the toon-shaded style of Wind Waker and the realistic look Twilight Princess. To me, this makes Skyward Sword its own unique visual experience. Now in a new interview from the Official Nintendo Magazine with Eiji Aonuma, we learn more about why Nintendo chose this art style.

I’m looking forward to seeing what some of the game’s big bosses and crazy dungeons look like.

“One of the reasons we’ve chosen the art style we have with Skyward Sword is that it is a better vehicle to showcase the exaggerated characteristics of some of the characters. Not only of the enemy characters, but as a representation of the sword spirit itself. Because of the way we have put the game together you have to focus on how the enemy is carrying their weapon, and there are a couple of different ways you can go about that. One, you can be super-realistic, and the other, not so realistic. We thought that because we want to highlight the swordfighting combat, we have to exaggerate the features. We thought that the art style we chose was best-suited to do that. You have to match the art style to how the game plays, and we thought this worked best. We matched the artwork so that we can highlight the over-exaggeration in the gameplay.” – Eiji Aonuma